Archive for January 2015

Whatever we may think of the ambiguities around Palestinian statehood, the issue is just not going away. The Olso process failed. it did not make the problem go away. Palestinians were undoubtedly put off the scent for a while. But it was temporary. How could it be otherwise?

The question of Palestine has been represented as a question for far too long. The hallucinations and threats of Israel have to put aside. We have been moved by Zionist hysteria for far too long. This is understandable in some ways. Europe has treated the Jewish people appallingly. No other people have been subject to similar treatment. This we can never forget.

But we now have to move things on. Palestine has been marginalised because of crimes committed by another people at another time. The reasoning has to shift, along with these …

On no one’s reckoning can settlements be acceptable. Here we have physical blocks of injustice. How can the Palestinians be expected to live “around” these settlements? How can the international community look the other way? To not face up to the illegality of the settlements puts international politics back to the dark ages.

Settlements and the Palestinians right to self-determination now cannot be waived aside …

What is the international community supposed to do in situations where politics and meaningful dialogue are replaced by war? The US and British answer is send in more weapons, kill less publicly but support war as a way of doing politics.

At some point the rights of the Palestinian people are going to have to be recognized and the end-game will be changed. The Palestinian people have more than demonstrated their determination not to be squeezed from the frame. There is absolutely no way that their claim to self-determination is going to go away; so why does the international community refuse to stand up to Israel and the USA? Why do we see this endless game of death continue?

Ordinary people in the United States and Europe have to demand change in the approach of their own politicians. There has to be full discussion of sanctions. No one should allow this pointless misery “for everyone” to continue. Build the boycott on both sides of the Atlantic …

On the one hand the international community expects Palestine to behave like a state, to develop its own personality by signing up to different international treaties – such as the Rome Statute – and on the other we see Israel punishing the Palestinian people for doing just as the world demands … Palestine is held in a bind, just as it has been held for over 60 years.

Israel’s actions – as in withholding taxes right now – do not make peace more possible. It does not put off action in the Hague but makes that action all the more necessary. Israel does not focus on security. Israel repeatedly violates all sense of justice expecting the international community to endorse each and every one of its “crazy making” moves. Madness.

What has been absent in the past 60 years is respect for international law and a clear sense of common purpose justice. Now for the first time, a real move in that direction has been made and we are seeing the standard response from Netanyahu. It is this man that is the threat for Israel. At some point the Israeli people are going to have to see through policies that hold them in the grip of the past. The pain of that past has to be put aside … To keep carrying it is too much.

Withholding tax revenues collected on behalf of the Palestinians will not make Israel more secure. Security will only come with justice. But these present moves will build up more resentment and encourage more violence, which of course Israeli leaders like the above welcome. The madness must end. All revenue being held back in the form of collected taxes must be returned to the Palestinians …

The way things are being hyped up, you might think that the Palestinian move had destroyed peace negotiations. But there are no negotiations. Gaza is still not open and so it is having great difficulties in get over Protective Edge.

It is very typical that that Israel would move in the way that they are moving. But no sensible person believes a word that comes out of the Israel PR machine.

What really is important for everyone is that the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement is stepped up. Build the boycott ….